Why do some people feel the need to please those who are better off than them ?

[JI7]

i'm speaking of some personal experience with work and other things.

but i have found that there are many people who always want the approval of those who really don't give a shit about them. these people use them(usually work place boss)and the people even complain about them. but they are always there seeking their approval.

i know there are cases where the person needs the job so they are doing it for those reasons. but there are also many cases where this is not an issue.

i start to really dislike these people also. i get tired of hearing their whining about the person using them when they always go back to them.

[Skittles]

1. are you talking about Obama and repukes?

[JI7]

2. that makes no sense

[Swamp Rat]

3. BAHAHA!!!

:D

[skeptical cynic]

4. Humans have the typical primate dominance hierarchy

It may have been twisted so that we are conditioned to recognize wealth, position and celebrity over more meaningful measures of accomplishment and leadership, but I think we just have a genetic program for submission to authority.

Celebrity worship, I think, is another manifestation of this behavior.

I work in a corporate environment, and my meeting notes are always filled with comments about which participants are dominant and submissive, which "leaders" deserve followers and which ones merely have the authority of position; and other "anthropological notes." I was ruined early in my academic years by very good professors of Sociology and Animal Behavior.

Recommended reading:
"Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
"Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes" by Frans de Waal
"Our Inner Ape" by Frans de Waal

[Hannah Bell]

10. In primates, operations of dominance hierarchy vary widely by species & abundance of resources,

to mention just two factors.

Same thing with human beings. A corporate environment is organized *as* a dominance hierarchy, & that's the kind of behavior it evokes.

I worked in administrative offices of HQ of a major corp (Boeing) & university administrative division, similar dynamics.

but i also worked in a cooperative business, dynamics very different, & in a business organized as a kind of collection of independent entrepreneurs, also kind of different.

And in a non-profit organized in a hierarchy ruled by a king-figure, creepiest of all.

now i work in a place that's sort of a cooperative branch of a hierarchy, has features of both.

[skeptical cynic]

12. I've experienced those same variations

as I've moved around among academic, government, and business environments.

Even in a corporate environment, where a dominance hierarchy is imposed by the organizational structure, a subtle hierarchy based on merit exists. Everybody figures out where the real solutions come from, and they'll step outside of the organizational structure to get things done. My wife worked for a major oil pipeline company, and she specialized in going outside of the hierarchy to get things done, then backtracking to create the illusion that everything was done by the book. She's retired now, but when I left academia to enter the business world, she advised me, "Forget the org chart; figure out the people."

Some of the most dysfunctional organizations I've experienced are those where the natural hierarchy is forced into submission by the imposed hierarchy. In such organizations, the best and brightest tend to move on to places they believe their abilities will be recognized, and the dysfunctional organization is left with the sheep.

Really big organizations are so complex, chaotic and redundant that this sort of dysfunction is hidden and diluted until the executive leadership fails. I watched what was, for a brief moment, one of the two major ethanol companies cease to exist for just this reason: the imposed hierarchy couldn't accept and make good use of the natural hierarchy.

I was just in a situation where an upper level manager threw together a plan of action, and that plan was followed, even though it wasn't working, because the manager was incapable of making a mistake and the organization punishes dissent. They'll waste millions before somebody recognizes that someone needs to declare success so they can close out the plan and move on.

[Hannah Bell]

13. ok, i thought you were saying something a little different. but to continue

the discussion a little, on your "natural hierarchy based on merit" --

don't you find that in a organization structured as a dominance hierarchy, what's perceived as/defined as talent/merit itself gets a bit polluted by that hierarchical structuring?

e.g. if john's good with people & bob's good with numbers, is there a hierarchy implied in their respective merits?

[skeptical cynic]

16. Absolutely

Which is one of the conditions resulting in dysfunction that drives the best employees out of the organization.

What I think I see most, are situations where there are two structures: the one demanded by the organization, and an underground culture where people saying things like, "Now, do you want to know what really happened?"

I think our overall culture is one in which what is perceived as or defined as talent/merit is polluted. Our "leaders" are mostly opportunists and exploiters. Nobel Prize winning scientists who literally change the world get to split about a million dollars, while people who do nothing but play children's games in adult fashion are paid millions of dollars a year. Our nation is dysfunctional, I believe, in large part because merit and talent have been abandoned in very critical places.

[Selatius]

5. Because they are hoping for some level of recognition, power, and glory for themselves.

Where I live, we call such a person a "company man." They are to be treated with caution. With these people, alliances are made strictly to gain power and nothing more. Loyalty or any of that other rubbish are moral anchors that weigh them down.

[JI7]

7. the ones i am talking about are not that type , i know there are some

who kiss ass in order to benefit themselves. but at least these people are doing it for themselves.

but the ones i'm talking about are the ones who know at best they will get a thank you from the boss. they aren't going to get any richer, better position etc. it IS about personal approval from some jackass.

[Robert DAH Bruce]

6. Observe and Emulate

They figure that there must be some "secret" to the other's success.

[Hannah Bell]

8. Because people suck up to perceived power. Suck up, want to be close to, part of, perceived power.

It's the psychological flip side of not wanting to be an outsider, at risk, powerless, etc.

[JI7]

9. in many of the case i speak of the people they suck up to aren't that powerful

i'm not talking about big name millionaire types.

i think what i'm talking about is more like the women who stay with some abusive loser asshole. or stockholm syndrome.

[Hannah Bell]

11. that's why i said "perceived" power. to a 5th grader, 6th graders look powerful.

to a battered woman, the batterer looks powerful.

[SoCalDem]

14. If you depend on crumbs, it's to your advantage to make sure the ones above you, have cake

until you are ready to kill them all & take the cake:)

[ejpoeta]

15. i think they think they will be one of them if they like them. kind of like in school

when you have the popular kids and other kids would try to ingratiate themselves in the group. sounds pretty similar. but the popular kids would just laugh at those kids and talk about them behind their backs or even to their face.

it's like people who talk about those on assistance as if they are lazy. when obama said he was going to tax people making more than $250k. well, certainly that is not them. they don't even come close to that. but in their minds he is talking about them. maybe it is their someday i'll win the lottery thinking. and then they may have to pay extra. i think they believe that when the middle class is gone they will land on the other side with those people. but the sad truth is they will be down here in the muck with the rest of us peons. the people they are trying to impress would probably only let them clean their pool or something. it's kind of sad really.